Oscar Volley: Who will triumph in Best Documentary?

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Baby Clyde, Glenn Dunks, and Nick Taylor to discuss Best Documentary Feature.

Baby Clyde: Every December (Or more likely January) when I’m putting together my year end ‘Best of’ list, it’s always filled with docs and International Features. In recent years I’ve found them vastly more interesting than the prestige pics that get churned out by Hollywood and inevitably nominated for Best Picture (I’ll be coming to that soon). 2021 was no exception. Half of my Top 10 is made up of documentaries. Three of which have made it into this category.

The big, splashy, hit of the year Summer of Soul, cleared its biggest hurdle by making the list in the first place. (The sometimes snobby Doc branch is notorious for snubbing the crowd pleasers -- Remember the Won’t You Be My Neighbour? debacle).  Whilst I’m mostly delighted by the quality of the nominees it does leave me with a quandary... 

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Doc Corner: The 25 Best Documentaries of 2021 (and where to see them)

By Glenn Dunks

Dear readers, I watch a lot of movies. Then again, what else was I supposed to do throughout yet another pandemic year with city-wide lockdowns and curfews? Which is why it was no real struggle at all to think of enough titles to make this list of the 25 best documentaries of 2021. Nor why I do not consider it the least bit excessive. Movies are great, so let's celebrate them! Each of the films listed are deserving of your eyes, although often for very different reasons—I hope my pseudo-weekly reviews and below captions help explain why.

It was a strong year for films about artists and art more broadly. Nearly half the films on the list below are related to film, music, painting, dance and/or the people to make them. Queer themed docs were also prevalent. The longest film here is 194 minutes. The shortest is 61. There is almost a 50/50 between male and female directors across 25 films that travel the globe from sex doll factories in China to political campaigns in Zimbabwe, a jail cell in Guantanamo Bay and the streets of Harlem...

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Doc Corner: 138 titles qualify for Best Documentary Feature

By Glenn Dunks

The Academy has released the longlist of titles in competition for the Best Documentary Feature category. The number is 138, a significant reduction from previous years that were well over the 200 mark. According to The Wrap, it is the lowest number since 2015. That certainly makes our job easier as well as that of the Academy’s documentary branch members who now have to get this down to a list 15 before the final five are announced on nomination morning.

Why is the number so much lower? Well, there are three good reasons for that... 

1. There’s still a pandemic happening, so fewer documentaries have been made let alone released.
2. The eligibility year is also shorter given those first few months of 2021 don’t count.
3. A new Emmy rule states that any film on the Academy’s viewing portal cannot then qualify for the television academy’s awards so if producers make this choice now they can't unmake it.

The full list, links to reviews, thoughts and other musings after the jump…

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